Stroll through Scripture for Sunday August 30, 2026

Based on Exodus 20:12-16

We now move from the first group of commandments, which are about our relationship with God, to the second set of commandments, which are about our relationship with our neighbor. 

The order matters.  Our foundation starts with our relationship with God.  It is only with a right relationship with God that we can see the image of God in our neighbor.  

One of the other key aspects of this second set of commandments is a continuation of the first set – the context.  It is important to remember that these commandments were given to the Israelites after they left slavery in Egypt.  In Egypt, there were multiple gods.  There were gods for everything essentially.  In Egypt, they worked endlessly.  

So how does the second set of commandments continue this?  While the first set breaks the theological basis of Egypt, the second set ensures that the Israelites don’t repeat what they experienced in Egypt.

Honoring parents is about family loyalty.  Egypt, like all empires before and after it, demanded loyalty to the state and the emperor. 

Do not murder isn’t just about the act itself.  Egypt devalued and dehumanized people, working them to death and treating them as discardable. 

Do not commit adultery goes well beyond the normal bonds of marriage.  In Egypt, the elites took women, especially slaves, as property, exploiting these women against their will.  

Do not steal is a direct conflict with the entirety of the Egyptian empire, which was built on stealing people’s labor and resources.  

Do not bear false witness confronts the unjust Egyptian legal system which granted no legal rights to the Israelites.  

Why is this so important?  As we are told in Scripture, the Israelites were in captivity for multiple generations.  That means these people only know the Egyptian way of doing things.  As much as they suffered from it, they would not know another way of organizing society.  The Commandments purpose is twofold – to break the theological foundation of the pantheon of gods that supported the empire and to set up a new legal system with different values for how people could live together.